A Man Like Mandela

Nelson Mandela
Courtesy: gettyimages.com

Mandela,

Like Mandela,

A man like Mandela,

I wanna be a man like Mandela.

I wanna be the face of courage,

I wanna be the essence of positive rage,

I wanna be the radar that keeps focus in range.

I wanna be the prime axis of change;

I wanna be the reason to turn the page,

I wanna be the item that gets your wits engaged.

I wanna be the spotlight of my own Madiba;

I wanna be a man like Mandela.

I wanna be the symbol of what makes a man.

I wanna make solitary confinement something grand;

I wanna be the bond of unity in a divided land,

I wanna take fear and bend it into triumph.

I wanna seize emancipation with no strings attached;

I wanna make my name a synonym for survivor.

I wanna be the shape of hope and its father;

I wanna be a man like Mandela.

Mandela,

Like Mandela,

A man like Mandela,

I wanna be a man like Mandela.

Akpan

From a Cell 8

The 8-foot cell that was Mandela's home on Robben Island.

One man

(And he was no ordinary man)

Had a vision and moved the motion to take a stand

The self-named lords tagged him bad gone mad

And shipped the hell-raiser off to rot on an isolated island.

But his was a story that couldn’t be caged behind metal bars.

One man

(I said he wasn't no ordinary man)

Opened his mouth to speak and his voice rose beyond his cell bars

And the nuance of his message held steady thro out every land;

A song of infinite hope that screamed the line, if you believe you can.

The man died but the memories of him live in the legacy of his plan.

One man

(You know, he was no ordinary man)

Learned that courage ain't in the strength of your arms

But triumph over the stuff that cripples your very heart.

The life he led drove the highpoints home like nail piercing plank,

His words reassure us like stars guiding travelers in the dark.

Akpan

Mandela: Couldn't Heaven Wait?

Merry Christmas, Madiba!

One more Christmas and it may have been right.

Then they could have you and paste you like the stars to the sky.

I know there’s always a first time

So why didn’t heaven single out this moment;

Pick a perdurable person to perform a positive pilot project?

It would have felt right

And we wouldn’t whine

Yeah, it may not have hurt as much to cry.

For once, couldn’t heaven wait?

And couldn’t Christmas floor the pedal and get here ASAP?

How do we trade healing for this hurting?

Silence been pregnant since the exit of Mandela.

They couldn’t slam the door on December, that’s alright.

But couldn’t heaven for once, just hold the damn line?

Akpan

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